The latest release from the splendid Time Released Sound
label features two students from Ireland’s premier wyrd folkers United Bible
Studies who are also musical luminaries in their own right; Richard Moult (of
Far Black Furlong, Orchestra Noir and composer of many fine recordings under
his own name) and David Colohan (of Raising Holy Sparks and Agitated Radio
Pilot). Hexameron is a beautiful and melancholic journey recorded by Moult in
the early hours of darkness during gale force winds at his home on the Isle of
Skye and later added to and embellished by Colohan in Ireland. Much like the
circumstances of its recording, Hexameron is a dark, spacious twilight of an
album with moments of quiet reflection occasionally punctuated by sudden and
heart wrenching gales of noise.
Each piece is accorded a number rather than title,
suggesting that the album is to be taken as a movement or as a set piece that
builds and grows. Emerging from the twinkling, peaceful acoustic dusk of the
first piece, Moult’s piano merges with Colohan’s distorted electric guitar on track
two, elegantly evoking slivers of sadness and longing in a haze of fuzz and
tremulous reverbed notes. The third piece is built upon Colohans’ acoustic
fingerpicking, the sense of beauty and gentleness added to by Moult’s piano
until huge sudden swathes of electric noise come crashing through like wind
against the landscape to be joined by haunting keyboards before fading
back to piano notes; the swell of the storm subsiding. Moults’ most recent
album Aonaran (also featuring Colohan and highly recommended) evoked a sense of
the Western Isles and the mountainous, wild terrain that Moult was writing in. Colohan’s
Raising Holy Sparks also do a good line in painting a vivid picture of wide
open horizons and desolate yet beautiful vistas; both artists do not disappoint
with this joint outing. You can almost taste the darkness over the hills and
water; the sense of quiet and loneliness inherent in these songs. Yet there is
an extra element include this time around; a sense of the time of year
(January) and small hours that Moult initially recorded in. This music exists
at the liminal margins of both night and day, when one is fading into the
other; the night sky is lightening yet is still dark. It is this texture and
quality that affords such a melancholy and wonder to these tracks. Colohan’s
guitar virtually yearns over Moult’s Popol Vuh-eque keyboards, the piano
glistening like dawn over the water. Occasional discordant blasts of alto
saxophone and trombone add to that 3am sense of disorientation.Track
five adds tense John Cale style bass notes to the building and gathering maelstrom
of guitar and piano, not unlike Nico’s classic ‘Evening of Light’ (itself
reminiscent of a winter storm). Final piece, number six, appears to herald in
the dawn, broken yet triumphant guitar proclaiming survival over echoing
keyboards and piano.
The nearest comparison to this album is the artists’ own
individual previous work and collaborations but at a push there are elements of
Godspeed You Black Emperor’s most widescreen and atmospheric adventures as well
as perhaps ‘Music for Films’-era Eno and again, Popol Vuh. However the music
that these two criminally under sung artists make is truly theirs; it is in a
world of its own.
Special mention must be made of the beautiful packaging
that this album comes housed in; Time Released Sound are known for their
releases being works of art in themselves (witness Plinth’s ‘Collected Machine
Music’ which came as a music box with its very own individual song strip and
covered in vintage photographs and ephemera). A surrealist collage made from
original work by Gustave Dore and added to by Colin Herrick of the label it
features waves, angels, woodland and machinery adorning the cover, suggesting
an uneasy mix of nature, spirituality and the industrial world. Indeed this album is spiritual; it evokes a
sense of human frailty and search for meaning, and who hasn’t been in that
space at 3am at some point? This standard edition is limited to only 200
copies; do not miss out.
The deluxe limited version package, in an edition of just
75 copies, is composed of original pages from a 90+ year old book on the work
of the obscure 15th century printer and illustrator Anton Sorg. The collaged,
inked and stamped envelope comes in a hand worked, outer translucent envelope with
a selection of his medieval drawings, a banded CD sleeve made from a page of
heraldic crests and a large double sided insert.
This is music for those dark, empty times of night when
all you can hear is the wind and your own thoughts. A soundtrack to the storm.
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